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Once again, Spencer had been left in the van whilst the rest of the team raided the property for their unsub. He knew why he was left out of the action; one glance at his marksmanship would have you asking why he was allowed a gun in the first place, but being kept on the sidelines made him feel silly wearing the FBI parka. He anxiously waited for the signal to join them in investigating the house, eager to prove his worth even when nobody asked him to. For now, he’d just have to make do with looking at the unassuming outside of the house.
A series of poisonings had led the team to an unassuming house at the end of a suburban street. There never seemed to be an in-between when it came to the serial killers they caught. Either they were the most normal person to ever exist, a boring job with a decent enough salary to keep them comfortable, a white picket fence and a family, or one look would make you nod your head as if it was inevitable to find bodies in the basement. This was an example of the first instance.
When they first made ground in the front garden sprawling with flowers, Spencer was quick to point out they were all toxic and likely the source of the poisons the unsub used. Lily of the valley, foxglove, water hemlock and its doppelganger, hogweed. At first, it seemed personal to keep switching the sources of poison, but it seemed more like a morbid, childlike curiosity. If one didn’t hit the way the unsub desired, just move on to the next one. It was unassuming enough to have your garden full of toxic flowers when most garden fillers were in some way.
His eyes dragged along, his mind reciting what he knew about their effects, until they paused at the small window on the first floor. It was nothing to look twice at, so he’d been unsure why his gaze was fixed there. More toxic flowers decorated the edge, and some poison oak wrapped around the trees near it. He squinted until he realised what he’d caught: the top of a distillation kit just about peeking through the window.
Spencer was good at psychology, incredible at pulling statistics on everything inside the DSM, no matter the edition, but humans would always be unpredictable in some capacity. A gaggle of neighbours had collected by the perimeter the police had set up, eagerly looking on for some sort of clarity. Imagine walking past the same house every day, maybe commenting on how well the garden was doing or what someone would need lab equipment for, only to find out what they’d been doing. He doubted he’d have to worry about that. Most of his neighbours were older and stuck around for the rent control, but who’s to say what they did in their heyday? He hated not knowing what was going on behind someone’s eyes, though that might just be a product of how he grew up.
He forced himself to look away before the guilt could begin to eat at him. He’ll write a letter tonight, he promised himself. He might have to edit himself so he didn’t give his mother any ideas about people sneaking poison into her food. They couldn’t afford for her to go on another hunger strike.
Eventually, the team exited through the broken door (thanks to Derek) with the unsub in handcuffs. He got out of the car as they loaded Bowman into the back of Aaron’s SUV and made his way over.
“It’s your dream in there. If you wanted anything, you better get it before we start taking photos,” Derek joked.
“That would be illegal and highly unethical,” he replied seriously, earning a few chuckles.
“I’ll get the camera. Do me a favour and put out the fire in the office. Seems like he was getting ready to burn evidence, but I don’t think he got anywhere before we came in,” Elle ordered. He nodded firmly before disappearing inside, biting his tongue before he pointed out that she should’ve doused the flames herself when they were clearing the house. He was trying to do a better job of watching his words after his last comment sent him on a two-hour search for his messenger bag.
“I didn’t burn anything,” Bowman quickly defended. “Is a man not allowed to enjoy his fireplace in his own home?”
“Not when you’ve got a body count,” Derek muttered under his breath.
“Poison oak?” Jason asked.
“Sorry?” He seemed smug about playing dumb, immediately making them uneasy.
Smug unsubs were something to be wary of, and this time was no different. Aside from the fire, nothing had seemed out of place. The chemistry set looked prepped, but there hadn’t been anything inside the glass beakers and tubes. His notes had been splayed out across the countertops in the kitchen, so they’d assumed he’d been getting ready to distil another toxin but didn’t get there in time.
“Reid, put out the fire, then come straight back out. He’s planning something,” Aaron said into the radio. “Morgan, get the ETA on the CDC team. They should’ve been here already.”
“On it.”
“There’s a rash on your hands. You should know not to handle it without gloves," Jason explained.
“I was in the middle of getting rid of my clippings.”
“Without gloves?” He shrugged, still smug. Jason narrowed his eyes. “You were in the house.”
“The neighbours get funny about burning garden clippings. I don’t like to waste the fire department’s time.” Jason’s head snapped towards Aaron-
“Reid, get out of there now!” He looked up to the chimney. Smoke plumed out the top, thicker than it had before. The window to the office was too high up to get a good look inside, but the room had gotten significantly darker. Spencer’s silence grew ominous.
“I can’t blame them, really. Given my stock, it would be rather dangerous.”
“Reid, answer me,” Aaron demanded. He couldn’t stop both himself and Derek from advancing toward the front door. From inside, they could hear coughing growing closer, mixed with thuds and bumps. The brief relief from hearing him was undercut by fear for what they’d see when they finally caught sight of him.
“Poison oak, for example. Mildly annoying to deal with the rashes, but when it's burned? Gosh, that can go wrong very quickly. The joys of urushiol. I’d start thinking about hiring if I were you. Hard to get good people nowadays.”
“Shut up.”
“Careful, agent. Don’t want your case thrown out, do you?” Jason slammed the car door in his face before temptation got the best of him.
Finally, Spencer stumbled into the light, struggling to grasp the door frame as his body jolted with every guttural cough and splutter. He was crumpled over, unable to keep himself upright. Derek set off in a dash to reach him and guide him further away from the house onto the winding stone path up to the porch.
“I’ll get the EMTs,” Aaron said, Derek only catching the first part because by the second he’d practically teleported to the ambulance sitting on the police perimeter.
“Put- fire,” he gasped, fighting against every cough to get his words out. He clung to Derek’s arm and left behind small crescents from his nails digging in. The agent didn’t react to it, too focused on getting him to a spot to set him down away from the toxic flowers. “Poison!” he forced out. Spit dribbled down his chin as the coughs set off a round of dry heaving he did a poor job of suppressing.
“Focus on breathing. We’re not going inside,” Derek assured him. He slowly helped Spencer to the floor and saw an angry rash had appeared on his face. His eyes weren’t clenched closed but rather too swollen to open, as tears leaked from the tiny spaces left over. “Deep breaths. In and out. Let’s loosen up this shirt, yeah? You’re just as bad as Hotch sometimes,” he said.
He kept his voice steady and clear, but really he was only soothing himself as Spencer fought tooth and nail for every breath. He unbuttoned the first few buttons on Spencer’s shirt and took off his tie, rolling it up neatly because no doubt by the end of this, the genius would complain about it being crumpled up.
It was hell to hear him breathe, even if it was proof that he was conscious enough to force himself too. Derek could hear the mucus building in an attempt to protect against the chemicals swelling his throat, and he was pretty sure it must’ve felt like he was breathing through the eye of a needle by the wheezing alone. He’d been witness to very few allergic reactions, but this was the spitting image of the severe ones. There was nothing he could do to make it easier other than keeping Spencer upright and loosening the clothes he had on, but it wasn’t enough. Guilt crept up on him with nowhere to direct itself since there really was nothing he could do.
“We’ll take over,” an EMT told him, and it took everything not to tell them to get lost. He stood up and stepped to the side, barely leaving enough room for them to take his place. It shouldn’t have sparked the jealousy that it did; he didn’t have half the medical training or equipment necessary to do anything of worth, but it still stirred up in him. “Is he allergic to anything?” they asked as they strapped an oxygen mask onto Spencer.
The question stunned him instantly. He didn’t know. He probably should. Maybe Spencer had mentioned it in passing, but in the moment, nothing was coming to mind other than how bad it was not being able to answer the question. He shook his head and looked to Aaron, who had once again managed to teleport without him noticing, for help.
“Carbenicillin, as far as we know.”
“Makes things a lot easier. What’s his name?”
“Spencer Reid,” Aaron supplied.
“Actually, it’s Dr-”
“Morgan.”
“Not the time, got it.”
“Spencer, we’re going to get you onto a stretcher in just a minute. We’ll give you a steroid to bring down the swelling in your throat so you can breathe a little easier, okay? Until then, just keep taking deep breaths for me.” Spencer made what they assumed was a noise to confirm he understood. “Are we taking one of you along?”
“I’ll go," Derek offered up.
“Gideon’s his medical proxy. He should go.”
“Pretty sure he’ll want to deal with Bowman.”
“And I’m sure I don’t want to deal with the paperwork from it,” Aaron grumbled.
“Well, you better decide before we pack up,” the EMT said and, as if on cue, the rest of their team began to swarm around Spencer to get him onto the stretcher.
“I left for five seconds! What the hell happened?” Elle asked.
Jason considered himself a patient person. He had to be, not to fall for every taunt an unsub gave him, but waiting on a hard plastic chair would make even the most patient of people beg for time to go faster. They should’ve waited for the CDC. He should be happy that it was only a rogue fire waiting for them and the contents of that fire weren’t any more deadly. He should be happy that Spencer wasn’t allergic to anything aside from a strain of antibiotics. Had he been allergic to poison oak…
He shook his head, catching sight of Elle fiddling with a tube of lipstick in her lap. The cap was tarnished and well-loved, damaged further by her twirling the case between her fingers. He wished she followed after the others, but he knew why she’d been elected for the job. He’d have to go back as soon as he confirmed Spencer wasn’t going to die, and Derek was ready to throw a fit over that, so here she was two seats away, waiting to take over. They hadn’t spoken. She must’ve assumed he blamed her in some way for it, which he did, but in that desperate way you blamed people for things they couldn’t have known about.
“Agent Gideon, Agent Greenaway? Do you want to come on through?”
It should’ve been a blessing to hear. It wasn’t. For all the time he wanted to be in the same room as his protoge, he wanted nothing to do with it now. He stood up all the same, Elle quick to mimic him, and followed the nurse through to the hospital room.
All in all, Spencer looked a thousand times better than the last time they saw him. His face was still swollen and lumpy, his eyes still forced closed and given the redness of the rash, it was probably a good thing that he couldn’t constantly irritate it by blinking. He coughed but no more than two or three times in succession, a massive improvement, though seeing his exhausted body jolt still made them uncomfortable. The oxygen mask had been switched out for a cannula, and the tape keeping it in place was encroaching on the worst of the rash. He absently scratched at it before forcing his hand back down to his side.
“We’d like to keep him overnight for observation, but we’re confident the worst of his reaction is over,” the nurse explained. “If you need anything, the nurse’s station is just across the hall.”
“You look like hell,” Elle announced once the nurse left. She sat herself down on the chair closest to his bedside and rested her arm on the side of his bed so he knew where she was. She briefly considered holding his hand, but that would be both overkill and unappreciated.
“I wouldn’t know,” he croaked. He tilted his head towards her as if to imitate eye contact. He sounded rather chipper given the circumstances. If he was capable of sarcasm, he must be fine, or that’s what Elle told herself at least.
“Well, I’m telling you, you look like hell.”
“Noted.” She tutted at him, and he had the gall to smirk back.
“You’re taking sick leave.” That quickly wiped the smile off his face. He sat up straighter with what little strength he had left.
“I don’t see why.”
“You’re not seeing a whole lot until that swelling goes down.” He huffed, probably mentally rolling his eyes or glaring. How he didn’t even consider this as an option was beyond her, but not entirely surprising.
“Take the sick pay. Easiest paycheck of your life. Other than when you played poker,” Jason suggested. “I can get you discharged, but you’re not working until I can look you in the eyes.”
“The nurse just said they want him overnight,” Elle argued.
“I don’t like hospitals,” Spencer said.
“Nobody does, doesn’t mean you break out of them as soon as possible. You can’t see Reid. How are you going to look after yourself?”
“I have an eidetic memory and, for clarification, I can see. Not to a good degree, but reasonably enough to not rely on someone else for support.”
“God forbid,” Elle muttered sarcastically. “I already take responsibility for having him put out the poison fire; if he croaks because you broke him out of here, that’s on you.”
“I’ve been assured my injuries aren’t life-threatening.”
“It’s you.”
“Only until the swelling goes down?” he asked Jason.
“You’re in no position to bargain. It’s either you agree and you’re on the jet tonight, or you don’t, and you make your own way home.”
“We’re in Wisconsin.”
“As I said, you’re in no position to bargain.” Spencer mulled it over for a second before nodding. “I’ll get the paperwork.”
“I understand why Gideon’s here, but why did you come too? Shouldn’t you be photographing evidence?”
“The CDC are assholes. They won’t let us in until they have their own folks catalogue everything, and by then, we’ll be onto the next case. The police here can handle it,” she replied. “We’re…okay, aren’t we?” she added hesitantly. He raised an eyebrow at her.
“Why wouldn’t we be?”
“The whole me getting you to put out the fire that made you look like you were playing with beehives.”
“Beehives are human-made structures. I think you’re referring to bee nests,” he corrected. He itched at the rash again before forcing himself to stop and gripping the thin sheet to distract himself. “I’d rather it be me than you.”
“Yeah?”
“Well, I would rather it not happen to anyone, and if it had to happen to someone, then I’d rather it be someone I don’t know since I wouldn’t care- I’d still care, but not in the same way. Since the first two instances weren’t possible at the time, I’d rather it be me. It’s easier.”
“Are you saying that to make me feel better?”
“No, no, I don’t think so.”
“Good, because it didn’t,” she sighed.